I know you’re wondering so I’ll say a few words about the name. It speaks to the size of the trike. At 11.5 ft (3.5 meters) long, its huge. I wanted to be more creative than using the typical descriptions of something large such as “leviathan”, “behemoth” or some compound of Godzilla like “Trikezilla”. Anyway, “Behemoth” has already been taken by a famous recumbent bike. Mammoth is also a bit obvious, but then I thought of a similarly sized relative to the mammoth, the mastodon. Combining that with “trike” yields “Trikelodon”, which to my ears sounds right. It also has a cool classic Japanese monster movie feel to it, as if it could have been cast as an advesary to Godzilla. Wouldn’t “Godzilla versus Trikelodon”make a great movie title? “Trikelodon” is much easier to say than “The Five Boro Bike Tour Tandem Trike” and since I’ll be taking it to many places other than the 5 Boro Bike Tour, it only seems right to change the name.

Now when I say “done” I mean the trike is functional. As with other projects I’ve built, the tweaking begins once functionality is achieved. This is why Trikelodon currently sports a livery of white metal primer. This will not be the final finish, but for now it’s a protective coat that can easily be removed and repaired if I decide I want to weld on another bracket or something. I also don’t know how transporting, use and storage is going to affect the finish so leaving it in primer for a while will let me see wear patterns very easily.

The 30 mile maiden voyage was a huge success. Trikelodon was extremely popular, attracting a lot of attention and all kinds of questions. I could never have anticipated how much of a rock star it turned out to be. Mechanically, there were no major issues and the only minor issue was that my chain derailled a couple of times after hitting a bump. Really, that was it. Actually, there was that last hill…See, there were lots of hills at the end and when disc brakes get too hot…Well, it ended OK and we made it to the finish unscathed. I’ll explain it all when I review the ride. Let’s just say there will be an improvemnent inspired by the experience.

Be on the lookout for a more detailed overview of Trikelodon and it’s unique features.